In "Frank Miller's Sin City," a hand is shot off, a dog snacks on human flesh, a gun impales a man's face. There is blood, blood everywhere, and sometimes it is radioactive yellow.

Here, men are hulking blocks of superhuman violence; they growl. Women are slinking, lipstick seductresses, femme fatales in eye-scratching revolt; they meow, then bite. It is the deepest noir underworld, all black ink and blood, soiled in crime, grime, slime. Vengeance is a worldview. Broken hearts lead to broken bodies. The residents are hookers and hitmen, their tools samurai swords, syringes, knives, axes, saws and razor wire.

We haven't even started.

Based on Miller's celebrated series of 1990s graphic novels, "Sin City" is Austin filmmaker Robert Rodriguez's new action movie, which, in deference to Miller's powerful vision, he co-directed and co-produced with the artist. (It opens Friday.) Shot on high-definition digital video almost entirely with green screens, the voluptuously gruesome, extravagantly grim picture is a masterpiece of visual invention, a dazzling stage in Rodriguez's one-man quest to reinvent cinema with digital technology.

Hardly a thing in the movie — save some props, one physical set and the star-packed cast (Mickey Rourke, Jessica Alba, Bruce Willis, Benicio Del Toro, Clive Owen, Brittany Murphy, Elijah Wood and more) — actually exists. The skies, the cars, the roads, the rain, the buildings — all of it was conjured on computers in Austin.

The process is not new to Rodriguez, whose popular "Spy Kids" trilogy was made the same way. But the integration of people and pixels — and the absolute fidelity to Miller's comics panels — marks the dawn of an exciting new visual grammar.

A cartoonish blur of creative hyperaction, Rodriguez spoke by phone from Los Angeles, where he's doing post-production on his Austin-made family movie, "The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl," which opens in June.

Austin American-Statesman: I think comic books in general are really lame. How do you entice someone like me to see "Sin City," which is almost literally a comic book (or graphic novel) come to life?

Robert Rodriguez: It should appeal to anyone who enjoys cinema. There are a lot of people who don't know anything about "Sin City" or that it's a comic, yet they see the trailer, look at each other and go, "That movie looks cool!" That it's a comic doesn't even matter. What I loved about the books was that they were beyond comic books. At comic book stores, I kept re-buying the same "Sin City" books I already had because they stood out so much.

Why is that? I know this is sacrilegious, but I don't even think the "Sin City" books look that great. The movie looks much better.

I started as a cartoonist at UT (for The Daily Texan) and I love that kind of negative imagery and simplicity of the drawings. That's the beauty of what Frank does. Comic books were looking so pretty at that time and he just went completely against that and drew these deceptively simple images that evoked so much. They were so abstract and so simple. They were just fantastic to look at. And then you would read them and the stories were really great, twisted and beyond belief. A lot of comic book artists draw the book and someone else writes it. What I like about Frank is that he did everything on them, so the imagery was as crazy and audacious as the story lines.

How did this admiration lead you to a movie version?

I've always wanted to make a film noir but was afraid of being nostalgic. About seven years ago I was going to do a "Kiss Me Deadly" remake with Michael Mann producing. But I wondered if people even bought into film noir any more, with the gumshoe and voice-over and black and white. After finishing "Once Upon a Time in Mexico" and "Spy Kids 3-D" I was looking for something where I could use all this knowledge of digital photography and lighting and special effects I had accumulated, and I wanted to do something challenging in those areas. I picked up Frank's books again and went, "Oh, my God! I know how to shoot this now!" His books were just so much bolder than anything people were doing in cinema. I thought it would be an insult to turn this into a movie; I needed to take cinema and turn it into this graphic novel and make a moving version of it. It would seem so foreign and make other movies seem so obsolete and so plain. I realized it didn't need adapting. It was already the best-written, best-shot, best-acted, best-lit movie you've never seen on screen.

When I say this is my favorite film of yours in a while, is the compliment diminished since Frank is such a collaborative force?

Well, the movie wouldn't have existed without all the stuff I did. I did more than just direct it with Frank. Besides the editing and photography and effects, I did all the visuals. Frank loved what I was doing. Since he'd already drawn it he didn't feel any need to be a part of that. I would take some of his drawings and interpret the movement on them. Sometimes he'd have a very, very vertical shot, which you can't do in cinema because (the screen) is horizontal. So I'd use a crane shot to get that same idea across.

How did you direct as a twosome?

I was on the camera and working with the actors as I usually do. Frank would run in there and give the actors suggestions. He knows the material and characters, so they wanted to hear from him about the future and backstories of the characters, how he meant a line to be heard. "No, no, the emphasis should be on these two words," or "This is what you're really thinking." I couldn't answer a lot of that because so much of it is in his head. I didn't just want him to be a writer and producer. I wanted him to be a director so that actors and crew had to listen to him. I wanted it to be "Frank Miller's 'Sin City.' " It comes from such a pure place. I wouldn't even let him change anything.

I can't believe you did the whole movie at your Troublemaker Studios here in Austin.

Everything was done in that same little green screen area, except for the bar, which is the only actual set. Everything else we shot in that 20-foot by 30-foot area. I surprise people by pointing to that little section and go, "We shot 'Sin City' right here." And they go, "What?" And that's how Frank draws the comic, sitting in his little studio with a blank piece of paper, creating entire worlds in one room. I told him, "Man, you're going to see how easy it is to direct. You don't need to show up with a headdress and rattles. You've already been doing it with a pen. It's just like drawing. You're going to be in one room creating all these images."

Are you aware that you've made the goriest, most outrageously violent American movie in years?

I thought "The Passion" might have been. (Laughs.) What feels relentless about it is that I took three stories and put them together. So it goes beyond what Frank originally designed.

I'm actually proud of you for the gore.

Thank you. People are not going to get a sense of what "Sin City" is unless I provided at least three different stories and really give them the grand tour. I wanted to make the trilogy without having to wait three years. So there's a lot of movie there.

How do you explain the Robert Rodriguez dichotomy of family fluff versus your R-rated gorefests?

One is the parent in me who likes to entertain kids and families. The other one is the big kid in me, the young guy who buys those comic books and those toys and loves that kind of pop culture movie. That's who I make "Sin City" for.

Are you letting your kids see "Sin City"?

They're not really interested. They're interested in "Shark Boy and Lava Girl." That's their baby.

You also, of course, made "The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl" in Austin.

I did "Sin City" at night and "Shark Boy" during the day. Things overlapped. We filmed the kids during the day, sent them away, then shot decapitated heads for "Sin City."

What the heck is "Shark Boy and Lava Girl"?

Well, it starts off in the real world and then it transplants to another planet and turns 3-D. There's a little boy who dreams up these characters and imaginary friends who no one believes are real. Then the friends, Shark Boy and Lava Girl, show up one day, break through his school, take him away in a rocket ship to the other planet. The actors are real but I use green screen again to create a whole world. My 7-year-old, Racer, came up with the idea. He draws the most and comes up with little stories and has the strangest dreams. And he would tell me this story, like when we were playing in the pool he'd say, "You're Shark Dad, I'm Shark Boy." I said we should draw it as a children's book that he can read to his brothers. Then the studio called and wanted another family film in 3-D because "Spy Kids 3-D" did fantastic. I was on the spot, so I mentioned this one and they liked it. I got off the phone and told Racer, "I think you just sold your first project."